Learning achievement, social adjustment, and family conflict among Bedouin-Arab children from polygamous and monogamous families.

A sample of 146 Bedouin-Arab pupils from polygamous and monogamous families participated in this study, which was conducted in a Bedouin-Arab village in the Negev, Israel. The authors compared learning achievement, social adjustment, and family conflict. Data revealed differences between the two groups: The children from monogamous families had higher levels of learning achievement than did the children from polygamous families; in addition, those from monogamous families adjusted to the school framework better than did those from polygamous families. The mean conflict rating of children from polygamous families was higher than that of their counterparts from monogamous families. The father's level of education tended to be inversely correlated with family size in terms of both number of children and number of wives.

Discharge planning and community housing in Ontario.

As hospital budgets in Ontario (and elsewhere) continue to shrink in the face of governmental fiscal pressure, bed closures lead to the discharge of increasingly vulnerable persons. Many of these persons have no family and no obvious place to go. Community supports to assist people outside the hospitals are not provided at a level commensurate with the need. The result is inadequate housing, social isolation, non-existent care and, in too many cases, reinstitutionalization and/or preventable deaths. This paper describes the process by which vulnerable adults wind up in unsuitable community settings, as a result of ill-conceived deinstitutionalization in the province of Ontario. It places a particular focus on the difficult role played by the discharge planner as conduit from hospital to community. The planner is often caught in the middle, facing hospital (and physician) directives to empty beds precipitously, alongside an acute shortage of suitable housing in the community. Departing patients are often sent to settings that lack any form of governmental inspection, regulation, licensure, or control: they are at the mercy of often indifferent and, at times, overtly rapacious landlords who may take the welfare cheque and give little in return. Selected case material, including one recent inquest, highlight the difficulties.

The development of community care policy for the elderly: a comparative perspective.

A comparison of the development of community care for the elderly in the province of Ontario, Canada, and in the State of Israel is presented in the light of the economic constraints currently challenging the expansion of welfare state services. The inquiry identified several common issues regarding the nature of the policy mandate for long-term care delivered in the home, the structure of the service delivery system and matters concerning funding arrangements for community care. Issues that emerged in both settings include the relationship between health and social services in the delivery of care at the local level; the separation of purchaser and provider functions; the question of needs-driven versus service-driven social care provisions; accessibility concerns and the aspiration for one-stop entry to the delivery system; the growing involvement of the private sector in the delivery of domiciliary-based personal care services; and the relative paucity of current efforts to address the needs of family caregivers.

Supportive and unsupportive interactions as perceived by cancer patients.

This exploratory qualitative study was undertaken to expand our knowledge of cancer patients' perceptions of supportive and unsupportive interactions with members of their social networks and the factors that lead them to evaluate certain kinds of support as helpful and others as unhelpful. Fifteen cancer patients were interviewed using a structured interview schedule. The interview focused on several aspects of the social support process, including types of helpful and unhelpful behaviours, perceived contingencies affecting the expression of supportive and unsupportive behaviours and appraisals of helpful and unhelpful interactions.

The impact of government economic restraint on mental health services in Canada.

The author discusses what he considers a fundamental change in the political, economic and social value system since the mid-1970s, and how this change is reflected in three trends of particular relevance to mental health services: the growing emphasis on the "residual" model of welfare; the "privatization" of mental health service delivery; and the tolerance of high levels of long-term unemployment. He criticizes the assumptions underlying these trends, and emphasizes that the choice of social and economic priorities is ultimately based on values rather than on empirical data. Accordingly, he argues for broad societal participation in the choice of priorities.

Technique bias in measuring acts of altruism. The case of voluntary blood donation.

The study compared personal interviews and a postal survey, posing the same questions to two random samples independently drawn from the same population. It sought reasons why respondents began and may subsequently terminate, involvement as voluntary blood donors in Toronto Canada. The priorities of respondents (ordinal rankings) were virtually identical in the two samples, notwithstanding a clear response rate and socio-economic differential between the modes. Differences in item response rates were compatible with explanations involving interviewer bias and question threat. The study suggested the low response rates of postal surveys may not necessarily imply relevant non-respondent bias. In certain cases at least, other aspects of technique bias may be a more important research concern.

KIE: In a study of the methodological problems involved in measuring the motivation to perform an altruistic act, voluntary blood donors in Toronto, Canada, were surveyed on a random basis by mailed questionnaire as well as by personal interview in order to determine why they began and why they may eventually terminate donating blood. The stated priorities of respondents in the two groups were virtually identical. The author concludes that the low response rates of postal surveys may not necessarily imply nonrespondent bias, and suggests that other aspects of technique bias be studied in place of the postal survey vs. personal interview question.

Continuity in social policy behaviours: the case of voluntary blood donorship.

Using voluntary blood donation as a case example, the study on which this article is based explored not only the extent, or breadth, of community involvement in social policy behaviours, but also the continuity, or depth, of this commitment. Demographic and motivational data were collected through a postal questionnaire returned by 1,784 persons who had voluntary donated blood at least once in metropolitan Toronto between 1974 and 1978. An empirical distinction was also drawn between the 'active' and the 'lapsed' donor. The study found that while certain sectors of society were probably disproportionately represented among those who close to undertake voluntary social behaviours, the continuity of these actions could not be statistically associated with demographic or socio-economic variables. However, it did find that donors initially motivated by 'external' considerations such as convenience of location were more likely to lapse, while those for whom moral considerations and a sense of community were most important were more likely to continue as active donors. The general conclusion suggests that manipulating the context may be useful to broaden the initial participatory base in voluntary actions, but to produce continuity in this involvement the challenge must be phrased in moral language.

An imbalance of power: social workers in unions.

This paper presents and discusses four basic structural conditions that are likely to influence the ability of any group of workers to achieve their collective bargaining goals. When applied directly to social work practice, the primary finding is that a group of practitioners is unlikely to wield significant power in the face of employer resistance. Implications are analyzed and include assessment of both the form of union and type of collective bargaining goals that might most usefully be sought by the profession. Certain incompatibilities between professional values and group self-interest are seen as less substantive than is commonly perceived.

Criteria for measuring the efficacy of trachoma vaccines in baboons.

Trachoma vaccines are usually assayed by testing their ability to protect monkeys or baboons against subsequent challenge of the conjunctiva with a pathogenic strain of trachoma/inclusion conjunctivitis (TRIC) agent. In such experiments the course of infection in vaccinated baboons was compared in terms of arbitrary scores assigned to a range of clinical signs, and of counts of TRIC inclusions in conjunctival scrapings. Analysis of many such scores indicated that after a large challenge dose of strain MRC-4s, the scores for signs of inflammation reached their maximum earlier than the follicle score; the inflammation score was closely related to the number of inclusions, whereas the follicle score was not. With this system, the optimum periods for eliciting differences between vaccinated and control measures varied according to the sign used; it was later for follicles than for inflammation or inclusions. For assessing the influence of vaccination, the mean of the inflammation scores read weekly for the first 3 weeks after challenge and the mean inclusion score over the same period were equally satisfactory, and either was rather better than the mean of three follicle scores taken over the period 3-6 weeks.For assessing the influence of vaccines or therapeutic agents on experimental trachoma it is important to determine which signs discriminate best between treated and control animals, and the optimum times for measuring them.

Carcinoma of bronchus and the smoking habit in Rhodesian Africans.

Comparison of the smoking habits of 32 adult male Africans with carcinoma of the bronchus and 32 controls showed that 87.5% of the patients with lung cancer were cigarette smokers compared with only 22% of the controls. The distribution of histological types of growth confirmed findings by other workers.The absence of atmospheric pollution in Rhodesia makes it likely that cigarette-smoking is the most important causative factor in the aetiology of lung cancer among Rhodesian Africans. Further work is needed to determine the level of consumption of cigarettes and type of smoking habits which lead to a serious risk of cancer.